How important is your car driving itself to you? For some they really don’t care.

It’s largely considered a given that the latest as well as future generations of drivers don’t really care about driving. And it’s also believed that kids prefer to Snapchat rather than steer a car and as a result will embrace autonomous technology more than their elders.

But according to Nielsen’s recent Youth Viewpoint on Self-Driving Cars study, like most generalities, this generation-gap view of self-driving isn’t completely accurate. Conducted by Harris Poll among just over 1,000 respondents between the ages of 8 and 18, the survey revealed that although knowledge of self-driving vehicles is highest among older kids in grades 9 through 12, more than 60% of those surveyed said they would rather drive than let technology take the wheel.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, since they’re closer to having the freedom that comes with a set of car keys, the survey’s older respondents expressed the strongest desire to drive themselves. Almost three in four high-school students said they want to be in control, compared to just over half of elementary-age kids who feel the same way.

The survey also sheds light on one potential issue for established automakers regarding self-driving and brand loyalty: Whether nameplate will matter to future generations. And whether they would rather riding in one of Google’s egg-shaped autonomous podsor prefer a premium experience from a name-brand automaker, such as Mercedes-Benz’s exotic autonomous vision via its F 015 Luxury in Motion concept.

When buying a car, you consider many features and values from price to mileage and electric cars have become one of the more popular options. One of the challenges of increasing sales of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) has been their lack of affordability for the majority of car buyers. However, the new generation of PEVs is becoming more economical, and the increasing inventory of used PEVs for sale is opening the technology to a broader spectrum of car buyers.

PEVs originally sold in 2012 are coming to the used market after their leases have completed or their owners have upgraded to newer electric models with longer driving ranges. Used PEVs, which generally have reduced maintenance costs due to fewer mechanical parts to wear out while relying on a much cheaper fuel source, can be an affordable first or replacement car for cost-conscious buyers who closely monitor their monthly expenses.

For example, many used 2012 model year Nissan LEAF ($10,000-$12,000), Mitsubishi I-MiEV ($8,500-$10,000), and Chevrolet Volt ($15,000-$18,000) cars can be found on Carmax.com that fit within a much greater percentage of budgets than a new PEV. While only in Colorado can used PEV buyers get a state tax credit, pre-owned PEVs are around half the cost of a new model—even after all incentives are factored in.

Results from Navigant Research’s 2015 survey of American consumers found that 77 % expect to spend $30,000 or less for their next car. This expectation excludes them for considering nearly all of the PEVs on the market—even after factory, dealer, or government incentives are included.

Autonomous driving opens possibilities of fewer accidents and increased safety, while that’s great for the drivers, it might not be quite so good for others.

Fewer accidents will, according to a recent report, turn the entire auto insurance industry on its head.

“We think that over the next 20 to 25 years, the number of accidents will fall by 80 percent,” said Jerry Albright, principal of actuarial and insurance risk practice at KPMG, the consulting firm that released the report. “From a consumer perspective, this is a very good thing. You’ll see improved safety, fewer deaths.”

At Progressive’s investor relations meeting in 2013, John Curtiss, the company’s auto products development chief, said the industry had grown 90 percent over the previous 30 years, mostly because more vehicles were on the road. More recently, Mr. Albright said that most insurance companies had problems turning a profit over the last six years and that the changes autonomous vehicles would bring were sure to make profitability more elusive.

At risk is the lifeblood of the industry — $200 billion in premiums that the insurers collect every year from policyholders, KPMG says.

According to KPMG’s report, the insurance industry could contract by as much as 60 percent by 2040 as accident damage payouts and premiums fall.

2015 was a busy year when it came to cars and 2016 and 2017 seem to be no different.

Faraday Future debuted a stunning electric vehicle concept at CES 2016 on Monday night. But Tesla can do a lot between now and 2018 (or thereabouts) when Faraday plans to bring out a real car.

Executives from Faraday Future, the Chinese billionaire-backed startup,were dropping buzzy-sounding ideas like Variable Platform Architecture, battery strings, and “aero-tunnels” Monday night. Jia Yueting, the billionaire founder and chief executive of LeTV — a Chinese media company with a market value of over ten billion dollars — is putting down some serious bucks. He’s one of the principals investing $1 billion in a 3 million square foot manufacturing facility on approximately 900 acres in North Las Vegas. The project would create 4,500 direct jobs on site.

But the first production vehicle won’t be here for “a couple of years,” as Nick Sampson, a senior vice president at Faraday and a former Tesla engineer, said on stage Monday night (to be fair, he used the word “only” when stating a couple of years and also had praise for Tesla: “Tesla and Elon Musk have created something we should all applaud them for”). The challenge is, in a couple of years, the Tesla Motors TSLA -2.38% Model X crossover will be a maturing platform and pouring out of Tesla factories. And of course that’s when the mass-market $35,000 Model 3 should hit the streets. And, needless to say, Tesla will have new car and technology announcements over the next couple of years.

Faraday claims it’s going to move fast and be able to crank out everything from FFZero1-like cars to SUVs to “even a pickup truck” based on its Variable Platform Architecture (see video at bottom). The VPA includes a battery structure arranged into “strings” — adding or removing strings changes the battery capacity and allows FF to develop new wheelbases. VPA also allows modular motor and power train configurations, including layouts with up to 4 motors and two or all-wheel drive systems.

Instead, malfunctions lasted for hours. Cars were smashed, and faulty machinery fell several stories to the ground. Sometimes vehicles were stuck for so long that garage operators had to pay for customers’ taxis.

“It was clear that the garage was not ready to be open to the public,” said Russell Galbut, the managing principal at Crescent Heights, the property developer, which has sued two manufacturers over the botched garage.

While engineers aim to perfect self-driving cars, they still have a lot of work to do on another element of the idealized commute of the future: robotic parking. Designs differ, but most consist of a combination of automated ramps, slabs, lifts and shelves, using a computerized system that parks and delivers a car like a high-tech vending machine.

But the garage on Collins Avenue is one of two cutting-edge parking projects in South Florida that ended in spectacular debacles. At a luxury residential high-rise in downtown Miami, a $16 million robotic garage plagued with delays finally closed, leaving tenants paying $28 a day to park elsewhere. The police were called to keep order at the building, BrickellHouse.

And around the country, other attempts at self-parking garages have been caught in embarrassing software and hardware mishaps at a time when dozens of projects have been proposed or are underway.

Volkswagen’s scandal continues to grow and grow as companies continue to look into the emissions tests.

Volkswagen is offering $500 in cash and $500 in VW dealer credit to owners of its diesel cars, a first step in compensating them in the wake of a global emissions-test cheating scandal.

The “goodwill package” is a stopgap measure while the automaker works on a way to fix the cars, which contain software designed to evade U.S. pollution regulations.

The automaker says customers don’t have to give up their right to sue the company — as thousands already are — but some attorneys are disputing that and warning customers not to sign an arbitration clause required to get the money.

It is a complete end run around the litigation that is in place,” said Amy Williams-Derry, an attorney with Keller Rohrback, one of the law firm’s pursuing class action litigation against the automaker. “They are trying to buy off plaintiffs who have already sued and consumers who would benefit from a class-action recovery.”

Some of the hundreds of cases already filed seek to have VW buy back the vehicles for the full price the customers originally paid.

To get the money, VW customers must visit www.vwdieselinfo.com, enter their Vehicle Identification Number, their mileage and contact information. They will also have to take their car to a dealer to activate the gift cards to prove that they own the vehicle.

Customers will also get access to a free 24-hour roadside assistance program for three years.

When driving to and from work everyday you want to know that your car will keep you as safe as possible, now since we can add new technology to older versions of cars there is no reason to worry.

The rearview camera is one of the most popular of a growing list of add-on devices and services that promise to bring modern features to aging jalopies.

“Lane departure and collision warning, pedestrian warnings, high-beam control and traffic sign recognition — all of those can be retrofitted in a customer’s car,” said Elad Serfaty, a vice president at Mobileye, whose technology is built into a variety of vehicles from BMW, Volvo and other carmakers that offer collision detection and prevention.

A warning and monitoring system that can be added to older vehicles, like the Mobileye 660, costs roughly $1,000 including a professional installation, Mr. Serfaty said, but he pointed out that the benefits could outweigh the costs. A Highway Loss Data Institute study of Honda Accords and Crosstours equipped with lane departure and forward collision warnings, for example, found a 14 percent reduction in damage claims compared with models without the systems.

If a drivers late for work, meeting friends or family function they will usually tend to speed up a bit, even if you do not have a time to arrive somewhere, sometimes we tend to be speed along anyways hoping to get there faster. However sometimes being faster will end up taking you longer since you were pulled over by the police or even worse if you get in a car accident. For that very reason cities have started putting up speed cameras to show how fast you’re really going to yourself and everyone else around you.

Speed cameras can substantially reduce the likelihood of deadly collisions and result in long-term changes in driver behavior. If all U.S. communities had speed-camera programs like the one recently studied, some 21,000 deaths or serious injuries would have been prevented in 2013.

Those are the main findings of a report released earlier this week by the Insurance, a nonprofit financed by the insurance industry.

“We hope this research will help energize the discussion around speed,” Adrian Lund, president of the institute, said in a statement. “We’re all accustomed to seeing posted limits ignored, but it’s a mistake to think nothing can be done about it. Automated enforcement is one of the tools we have at our disposal.”

The study was based in Montgomery County, Md., a large community near Washington, D.C., where speed cameras were introduced in 2007 and used on residential streets with speed limits of 35 mph or less and in school zones. After seven years, cameras reduced the likelihood of a driver exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 mph by 59 percent, compared with similar roads in two nearby Virginia counties that did not have speed cameras, according to the study.

Once retired some people go on vacation and cruises others purchase that luxury vehicle they have always dreamed about.

Richard Emmons, 83, likes to spend his weekends cruising around in a 1995 Jaguar convertible with a big 12-cylinder engine. His weekday drive is either a 2009 Volkswagen Eos or the $82,000 Audi A8 sedan he bought in November. After all, this octogenarian needs something reliable for his 10-mile commute to the Pratt & Whitney plant in Windsor, Conn., where he works full-time as a jet engineer. “I’m bad at retiring,” Emmons says. “I don’t really have a lot of hobbies anymore. I just like cars and investing.”

American seniors have never been healthier or wealthier. At the same time, cars have never been crammed with more features to safeguard drivers with fuzzier vision, slower reactions, and stiffer necks. Those forces have created a powerful economic engine for car manufacturers. This might just be the first time ever that one of the most promising demographics for the auto industry is represented by Social Security recipients.

“Honestly,” says Harley-Davidson Chief Marketing Officer Mark Hans-Richer, “we sell new bikes to guys in their 80s all the time.”

The roads in America are going gray. From 2003 to 2013, the number of licensed drivers over the age of 65 surged by 8.2 million, a 29 percent increase, according to U.S. Census data. The very old were particularly stubborn about pulling over for good. There are now about 3.5 million U.S. drivers over 84, a staggering 43 percent increase over a decade ago.

On the other end of the age spectrum, teenagers no longer have the income or inclination to own a car. Over that same 10- year period, the ranks of drivers under age 20 declined by 3 percent.

The lifecycle of a car can depend on the maintenance as well as the family, s their a teenager who needs their own ride, or a family that needs more than one vehicle to drive to work. These factors can influence the amount of time a family keeps a car and the age of the car itself.

The average age of vehicles on the road in the U.S. is rising, even as consumers snap up more new ones — a paradox attributable to substantial increases in reliability.

The typical car on the road in the U.S. is a record-high 11.5 years old, according to a new IHS Automotive survey.

Yet Americans are buying cars at an annualized rate of more than 17 million vehicles, marking a high not seen since before the Great Recession. In fact, U.S. vehicle owners bought 42% more cars than they scrapped in 2014, according to IHS. The number of light vehicles registered in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 257.9 million units.

How are vehicles getting older, while Americans are buying newer cars, too?

Simple: They’re either keeping the old ones along with the new ones — know anyone who bought a new car and kept their old one in the driveway? — or the vehicle made its way into the used-car market, where someone else bought it..